


They Can't Take That Away From Me

by okjetaime



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Eggsy Becomes Galahad, Gen, Harry stays dead, Hurt/Comfort, Let's just ignore the fact that Kingsman: The Golden Circle exists, M/M, Post-Kingsman: The Secret Service, Recovery, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 00:49:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20612171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okjetaime/pseuds/okjetaime
Summary: "He just simply didn’t want to be where Harry wasn’t, but Harry had gone where he couldn’t follow. So, now may be the time to get over it."Eggsy's journey through holding-ons and letting-gos.Inspired heavily by a song "They Can’t Take That Away From Me" by Ella Fitzgerald





	They Can't Take That Away From Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written back in 2015, when Harry was lost to the world forever.

Eggsy was in love with Harry Hart.

He loved him even more than his father, whom he could vaguely remember, loved him like one of the family members apart from his mother and little sister, loved him as if they shared the same blood, loved him because of this whole new life he received from him, and loved him because of a lot more than that.

In a short period of time, he had fallen in love with Harry Hart, deeply, desperately, wholeheartedly.

In a short period of time also, _with a fucking bullet_, they had taken his heart away from him.

And what was left was an exhausted body of a broken boy, with his job at Kingsman and his family as the only priorities to focus on. When he didn’t engage in those two things, he was left alone with shattered memories and sleepless nights, knowing that tomorrow, when he walked into the shop at Savile Row, Harry wouldn’t be there. There wouldn’t be any fond smiles or dull jokes or simple praises waiting for him there.

Not anymore, because Harry was dead.

And Eggsy was slowly going out of his mind.

He was not ready to let go of a dead person who passed away too early just yet. For him, Harry was still alive, and he would like him to stay that way, even though it’s not possible. It seemed to be the only way for the young boy to carry on.

So, he kept the part of Harry he was allowed to keep. _His_ Harry.

For instance, when he came back from one of the few unsuccessful missions with bloodied hands and a feeling that he was going to drown in guilt, Eggsy would stop still before he unconsciously start anything stupid and take a deep breath.

Then he would think of Harry. How elegant he was, even when the situation was bad as fuck.

He would think about that time when a recruit like him got a chance to saw the trial process with one of the new gadgets Merlin had come up with. This time it came in a shape of a bowler hat that can be used as a killing weapon with razor edges. Of course. Just like in a James Bond film. Again.

But anyway, the thing was that Harry was the one testing it.

So, the old knight was trying to find a way to hold and throw his hat properly to make use of it. By observing intently enough (because he always paid close attention to every single detail about Harry), he could see a glimpse of irritation bleeding out of Harry’s pursed lips. But if he didn’t know the man that well, he would be amused by how handsome he looked, even when he was throwing the bloody hat.

Finally, after so many inappropriate stifled laughs from Merlin, Harry managed to handle the bowler like a gorgeous gentleman he was. He looked satisfied with himself and very calm, and above everything, he looked _absolutely in control_.

With that, Eggsy repeated the lesson from the late mentor to himself; don’t ever lose control, no matter what. Despite what happened at the church (that wasn’t Harry, screw Valentine), he still believed every single word Harry had proved right.

Then he would compose himself, and be as graceful as before, getting ready for the mission debrief and whatever coming after.

With his personality, it wasn’t an uncommon thing for Eggsy to get into a dispute, even, or to be more precise, _especially_ with someone he loved.

He did have an argument about the details of the mission he had accomplished with Merlin, Roxy and Percival as the new Arthur; they all knew very well already why he had to risk his life saving somebody he didn’t have to. Or when it came to raising his little sister, he would unconsciously raise his voice at Michelle, although he knew she intended well, he still couldn’t let her spoil the child like that.

Eggsy always got angry easily.

Just like the last time he was with Harry.

But he didn’t like thinking about the last time that much (_because it hurt oh God it hurt like a motherfucker__)_ so when his mind was cloudy with rage, Eggsy would try to relive some other moments when Harry was genuinely proud of him instead.

Like... when he succeeded at one of the many inhuman tests Merlin had thrown at the recruits, then he went to visit Harry at the infirmary. The knight was sitting on the edge of the bed, very much recovered from the strange acid from the blown head. In his hand was a cup of Earl Gray. Black, just the way he always liked.

He had sat down at the chair next to the bed and told Harry about everything he had done on that day. How, despite the danger of the wood and Merlin sneering in his ears at all times, he still managed to get the flag he was assigned for and survived. All the while, Harry was listening carefully, occasionally sipping on his tea, not even bothered about the fact that the whole thing was just Eggsy trying to make him feel proud.

Then after the long story, Harry had put the cup of tea down and smiled at him.

“Very good, my dear. Excellent. There should be only a few more missions and then you will definitely be working among kingsmen. You are capable of it, I am certain.”

Eggsy would think about those perfect accents, remembering the smell of expensive tea that came tagging along with the words, and calm down, knowing that Harry was still in his corner, no matter what.

It didn’t even matter if he’s already dead. Harry was here, on his side, supporting him.

Apparently, a job at Kingsman did cruel things to him, crueler than what Merlin had prepared him for with the recruitment tests. There was this one time Eggsy failed to save a poor innocent girl who was extremely unlucky to happen to be in that killing field. For a guy who couldn’t even kill a dog like him, the moment that girl died was going to haunt him for the rest of his life. So he had to try to tell himself these things happen, he could not save everyone,

He was not perfect.

Even his beloved Harry was not perfect.

He had discovered that back when Harry was still in the infirmary, denying resting and wanting to be more useful for the mission in hand, and he tried to talk Harry into sleeping, but ended up singing him to sleep instead. It must have been a very abnormal sight, a young boy crooning some stupid shit for an old man on a sickbed. But if there’s one thing Eggsy thanked God for giving him as a gift, it would be this voice of his. No one had ever complained before when he sang.

So when Harry asked him to sing a bit, he really couldn’t deny. He wanted to show Harry the good things he’s got, wanted to show him _everything_ he’s got anyway.

The even funnier thing happened when Harry started to hum along with that oldies tone he learned from his mother’s radio when Dean wasn’t around. And it was slightly… off-key.

“Seriously, Harry, you can’t sing?” He raised his eyebrow at the old knight, who had stopped humming immediately when Eggsy’s melody came to a halt. Harry went still for a split second, and then simply answered with a level voice, “Well, being a gentleman does not make me more or less than a man, and a man is anything but perfect, Eggsy.”

The young man wanted to object _but,_ _to me, not being able to sing doesn__’__t make you any less perfect than you are now _but he wasn’t sure how Harry would react to that, because, as funny as it was, it was also too close to the truth. And maybe Harry was right, perfection might not exist.

So he let that go and just grinned at the man on the bed, knowing now that he had learned something about the great Harry Hart that wasn’t so great after all. Eggsy loved the feeling of being special to someone in this way, especially when it came to his mentor.

That memory was one of the best things the young Galahad had left when things got rough. Every single time, the low hum which still echoed in the back of his mind helped him remembered who he was.

No more and no less than a man.

As the days went by, the young knight found himself not being able to really smile.

Living was not easy, obviously, especially when your work was to keep the chaotic world from falling apart. Most of the time, it was easier to just shut up and keep soldiering on. Yes, he still grinned at pretty birds and handsome blokes like a reckless teenage playboy, but the genuinely happy smile didn’t come as easy as before anymore.

There were a few things that still made him smile, even laugh, kept him mentally healthy. His little sister’s laughter, for one, was a really good trigger. And maybe when Roxy got tangibly drunk and did stupid things such as calling Merlin and teasing him about his real middle name, and when Merlin tried to deal with the call at three in the morning with an amazingly calm voice.

But sometimes he was really desperate for happiness, and in the middle of the chaos, it was very hard indeed to find one. His last resort was Harry’s smile. The smile that bloomed like a blossom in the morning light was still stuck in the back of his mind. It was rare, of course; Eggsy knew he was horribly lucky to see it when they were alone together in the office with the red walls.

They had talked about some stupid things the boy didn’t even remember; perhaps it was about the relationship between mentors and recruits, since he vaguely remembered discussing about how Percival had looked at his own protégé. But anyway, out of the blue, Harry sincerely smiled. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the bright smile on the handsome face. It fit perfectly and he was blinded for a second.

Harry’s smile was _so goddamn beautiful_.

Eggsy had tried to understand how Harry could still smile that fascinatingly after so many years as a kingsman. The question finally fell out of his mouth one day, and the old Galahad said, it is necessary for a person in their line of work to find someone to hold on to. One had to have a place or a person where they could always depend their happiness on. Always, all the time, anytime.

Harry never gave an answer to who his special person was, but for Eggsy, that person was already dead.

That’s why every time he thought about that smile, he held on to it a little bit tighter.

On one unfortunate event, Eggsy failed pathetically at doing an undercover mission and was being tortured for days. It’s quite unsurprising that the head of a human trafficking ring would want to know the name of the people who tried, and almost accomplished, to stop their business.

But Eggsy knew how to keep his mouth shut. He had done this before, a dozen of times already.

Unfortunately, that had to mean that if he wouldn’t speak, the men with fists and tools wouldn’t stop.

When hopelessly praying for backup from the headquarter wasn’t enough, the young captive would have to find some way else to survive the situation with dignity and sanity still attached. So, he looked at the people who tried to break him open through swollen eyes, looked at the sharp objects in their hands and then put himself away from that chair he was tied to.

He was simply not there and with Harry. It was easier that way.

To do that, he kept his eyes on the knife that was smeared with his own blood and thought about how Harry held a knife.

For killing? Oh, enough number of people had seen the ferocious Galahad killing. That side of Harry needed not be talked about, not that Eggsy didn’t appreciate it every time he saw the smooth movement when the knife and the owner became one. But he liked to think about the moments the old knight held a knife with tenderness more. Like when he was cooking for him.

Eggsy had an opportunity to see Harry cooked only once, when he had spent 24 hours in the mentor’s house. He had a graceful way of moving his body through the kitchen that the young boy didn’t even care if the food was good or not, even though it of course was. 

Every slice of carrot and radish was like a work of art. Seriously. You could tell just by looking at the vegetables that the chef had been delicate with his food. After a while, Eggsy realised that he couldn’t stop staring at the hands smoothly handling the kitchen utensils.

He was glad he still remembered the gentle sides of Harry Hart. He preferred those more than the cold-hearted ones. Although he actually liked every single part of Harry, he loved the Harry at rest in the domestic of the house more than the one out there fighting and being shot at.

And by remembering it, he remembered how some secrets were worth hurting for.

Then the day came when Eggsy thought, no, he couldn’t take this anymore. He didn’t want to be alone. He was alone even when he was with Roxy, Merlin, or even his family. He knew his mother understood his pain since her husband had been taken in quite the same way, but she had to know that he was not as strong as her.

He just simply didn’t want to be where Harry wasn’t, but Harry had gone where he couldn’t follow.

And he had cried for a good amount of time over that fact, got so weak and so sad that Michelle gave him some useful advices from her own days of grieving. He _had to _get over it, his mother had said.

By that resolute voice, he was woken up. He opened his puffy eyes and looked at his life one more time. He agreed.

Now may be the time to get over it.

So he went into that house that the owner no longer owned, sat down on the desk that wasn’t being used anymore, then he breathed in the faded smell of the dead person.

Oh, how Eggsy had missed him.

He felt the room echoing his feelings way too loud and finally made a decision by taking his phone out of his pocket, searched for that one particular song in his playlist, and pressed play.

_They may take you from me, _ _I'll miss your fond caress_

_But, though they take you from me, _ _I'll still possess_ _…_

Then he reminisced about that night they had spent together, where Harry tried his best to teach his young protégé how to dance like a gentleman, which was frankly the hardest lesson Eggsy’s ever learnt. It was so hard that they had spent almost a one-third of the twenty four hours they had on it. Well, they spent it on both the dancing and the laughing (mostly about Eggsy’s foolish jokes that were not even funny) and they ended up having quite a nice time.

So he guessed if he was going to let Harry go, then one last time, he would think about that memory.

_The way your wear your hat,_

_The way you sip your tea._

He had clumsily stepped on the mentor’s feet a couple of times, but the old man didn’t seem to mind. When the young man _eventually_ found the right rhythm and place to move his feet to, they actually had fun and lost themselves to the music. A melody from almost a hundred years ago kept playing through the stereo, and Eggsy, who had never had an opportunity to listen to a real high-class jazz before, fell in love.

Both with the music and with the man he was dancing with.

_The memory of all that,_

_No, no,_ _ t_ _hey can't_ _ take that away from me._

It was the kind of love he never thought he would understand in this lifetime. Never thought he would even get a glimpse. But here he was; one step away from working with the coolest tailor shop in the world and too close to the most likeable man alive.

With Kingsman and Harry, his life suddenly meant something.

Eggsy sat there quietly for some good minutes, just listening to the overwhelming sound of the memories. And while every single sentence of the lyrics pierced through his heart,

_The way you hold your knife,_

little by little,

_The way we dance till three,_

he let go.

He told himself he didn’t have to grieve anymore. Harry would be okay with that. Harry would always be waiting. Harry would always be with him anyway.

When the music ended, Eggsy faced with the silence of the room again.

Then with a whisper, he said goodbye.

\------------

With a handful of years at Kingsman, Eggsy became a new person. Of course, he’s still that man with Welsh accents hidden underneath all the fanciful high-class manners he had acquired, but he was also something else too. He was the anonymous who had saved the Queen of Great Britain, twice. He was the cause of the peace in Eastern Europe. He was the reason why people in Morocco were still alive.

He was indeed a lot of things, and all of these wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t met Harry.

If Harry hadn’t been the one responsible for his father’s death, hadn’t been the one answering his call and bailing him out of the police station, hadn’t handed him this opportunity, hadn’t _died_, he wouldn’t be here at all.

He would be just another ordinary man on the streets of London. His life would still suck and be stuck with that old stinker named Dean. His mother and sister would be having a much harder daily routine than they had now.

Everything he had, every single thing he still got a chance to possess, came from Harry.

Even his codename belonged to the deceased.

He was once sad by this fact, but now that he had lived through all the good and bad things in the world, he realised these scars Harry had left were actually in the category of the good ones.

At least they would be one of the ways to really know that there was once a great, beautiful man living on the face of the earth.

A man, who had had Eggsy heart and still did even after he had gone for so long.

_The way you changed my life,_

_No, no,_ _ t_ _hey can't_ _ take that away from me._

One day, he woke up and realised he had dreamt about Harry again after many years of dreamless nights he finally managed to have. This time it was not nightmare like back then when the sound of the bullet was still fresh in his mind. He dreamt that the old fucking bastard wasn’t killed, and the young man had a chance to express how he felt about his mentor.

A decade later, and those short times he had shared with Harry still lingered on and had an effect on Eggsy’s life. He was still in the career Harry had given him, with the skills Harry was proud of, he still went to gym every day to make sure that he was still in the same shape as the day he had been given his first suit (_the lasting and useful memento of his time at Kingsman_, as Harry had said. He would rather say ‘his time at Harry’s side’, considering.) All in all, he still belonged to Harry.

He may have let the love of his life go, may have accepted the fact that they would never meet again in this life, but every single memory from the moments they had intertwined would still be with him, always.

Even long after they had taken his heart away from him, there would still be these little pieces of Harry left with Gary Eggsy Unwin, until his dying day.

_We may never meet again on that bumpy road to love_

_Still, I'll always keep the memory..._

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna talk, feel free to tweet me at @okjetaime. Peace!


End file.
